The 404 Media Podcast

404 Media
  • 4.8 (429)
  • TECH NEWS
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Welcome to the podcast from 404 Media where Joseph, Sam, Emanuel, and Jason catch you up on the stories we published this week. 404 Media is a journalist-owned digital media company exploring the way technology is shaping–and is shaped by–our world. We bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds both online and IRL through investigative reporting, smart blogging, and breaking news. At 404 Media you’ll read, and hear, stories you can’t find anywhere else written by journalists who are leading experts on their beats. Subscribe to 404 Media at 404media.co to gain access to an ad-free version of this podcast, as well as a bonus podcast episodes. Subscribers are the bedrock of building a sustainable business for our journalism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 1D AGO

    How the Internet Became Hell (with Whitney Phillips)

    ‘The Ambivalent Intent’ and ‘The Shadow Gospel’ author Whitney Phillips on how online got so bad Why does the internet feel like it’s getting worse every single day, and why does it feel like the political landscape is getting worse in response? The answer might seem obvious, especially if you read 404 Media on a regular basis, where we’ve been documenting this decline, but it’s important to occasionally zoom out and ask the big questions.  That’s why this week on the podcast I’m joined by Whitney Phillips. Phillips is the author of several books about internet culture and ethics, including This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things and The Ambivalent Internet. She’s a professor of information politics and media ethics at the University of Oregon, and also one of my favorite people to talk to and listen to because she’s a genius when it comes to the kind of internet culture and platform dynamics we report on every day at 404 Media.  I wanted to talk to Whitney today because it’s been a few years since we talked in depth about the state of the internet and so much has changed in that time, sadly for the worst, and I really wanted some help in understanding the current state of things, as bad as they are. We also spent quite a bit of time talking about her upcoming book, The Shadow Gospel: How Anti-liberal Demonology Possessed U.S. Religion, Media, and Politics. YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/gp_n6vDmFfc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 5m

  2. 6D AGO

    Wildlife Cops Are Searching AI Cameras for ICE

    This week we start with Jason’s story about how wildlife cops are doing Flock lookups for ICE. It shows that ICE is gaining access to this sort of information through pretty unexpected ways. After the break, Emanuel tells us all about the AI ban at Wikipedia. In the subscribers-only section, Joseph breaks down a set of vulnerabilities in the ‘secure’ chat app TeleGuard. 0:00 - Intro 1:03 - Wildlife Conservation Police Are Searching Thousands of Flock Cameras for ICE 27:55 - Wikipedia Bans AI-Generated Content 34:33 - An AI Agent Was Banned From Creating Wikipedia Articles, Then Wrote Angry Blogs About Being Banned Subscriber's Story - A Secure Chat App’s Encryption Is So Bad It Is ‘Meaningless’ Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/YrHYwCb5aM8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    50 min

  3. APR 6

    The Lawyer Fighting Government Surveillance for 30 Years (With EFF's Cindy Cohn)

    This week Jason brings you an interview he did with The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s executive director Cindy Cohn, who recently announced she would be stepping down from the legendary digital rights nonprofit after decades of service. Cindy's new book “Privacy’s Defender,” is a memoir of her work to protect Americans’ privacy and fight government surveillance.Privacy’s Defender weaves Cindy’s life story through three incredibly important court cases. Rather than being a dry recounting of three complicated and technical cases, Cindy recounts her strategies in each case, the trials and tribulations she was going through during each period, and the stakes of each case. A quick backgrounder — the cases are Bernstein vs Department of Justice, decided in 1996, which established code and encryption as protected speech under the first amendment, a lasting decision that became critical in Apple’s lawsuit against the FBI in the aftermath of the San Bernardino shooting. It also follows EFF’s lawsuit against AT&T for building a secret backdoor in its internet data centers that gave data to the NSA for warrantless surveillance against American citizens, a case that was built in part around testimony and documents shared by Mark Klein, who showed schematics and design documents for secret surveillance rooms in AT&T’s offices. And finally it follows the Alphabet Cases, which were lawsuits against FBI gag orders for national security letters, which are secret demands for customer information that came with gag orders against internet companies that prevented them from disclosing the fact that the FBI approached them for information. Those cases concerned both Cloudflare and a telecom company called CREDO, and went on for many years. Our interview with Cindy shows that the fight for privacy happens in fits and spurts, and is rarely linear. Cindy's Book Privacy Defender: https://www.eff.org/Privacys-Defender Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/2OwH_XyfEhs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    55 min

  4. APR 1

    Inside the AI Slop Propaganda Wars

    This week Matthew Gault joins us to discuss his article about Iran’s AI slop and LEGO-focused propaganda, and why the creators chose LEGO. After the break, Jason tells us all about the new automated system in baseball and the drama it’s causing. In the subscribers-only section, Sam walks us through perhaps one of the worst sex apps of all time. 1:19 - Iran Is Winning the AI Slop Propaganda War 26:37 - 'You Can't Defeat the Robots!': Baseball's AI Strike Zone Is Must-Watch Television Subscriber's Story - I Tried to Find the ‘Arousal Intelligence’ In An Animated, Augmented Reality Porn Star Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code 404MEDIA at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/404media YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/_4buUas3tGs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    53 min

  5. MAR 30

    The Journalist Who Tracked Epstein Island Visitors’ Phones

    This week Joseph talks to Dhruv Mehrotra, a journalist and technologist at Bloomberg. Before that, Dhruv was at WIRED, where you probably saw a ton of his interesting work. Dhruv sits in a very unusual space in journalism: he is able to both write technical tools to dig through data, or collect information, or really anything else, and is also able to just write a damn good story. That is a very unique blend. The pair chat about Dhruv’s entry into journalism, how computational journalism has changed over the years, and how Dhruv uses AI too. Jeffrey Epstein’s Island Visitors Exposed by Data Broker ‘They're Not Breathing’: Inside the Chaos of ICE Detention Center 911 Calls Epstein’s Inbox Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    45 min

  6. MAR 25

    The Company Secretly Turning Your Zoom Meetings into Podcasts

    This week we start with Emanuel’s crazy story about WebinarTV, a company that is secretly recording Zoom meetings and turning them into AI-powered podcasts. It’s nuts. After the break, Joseph tells us about the eccentric billionaire who tried to become a cocaine kingpin. In the subscribers-only section, we lament the lose of the metaverse. 1:06 - This Company Is Secretly Turning Your Zoom Meetings into AI Podcasts 25:58 - An Adrenaline Junkie Millionaire’s Quest to Become a Cocaine Kingpin Sub's Story: RIP Metaverse, an $80 Billion Dumpster Fire Nobody Wanted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    47 min

  7. MAR 23

    The Marketing Tricks of "Artificial Intelligence"

    This week, Sam talks to Emily Bender and Alex Hanna about the marketing ploys of “artificial intelligence,” why ridicule works to keep big tech’s claims in check, and what makes them hopeful for the future. They’re the authors of The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want.Dr. Alex Hanna is a writer and sociologist of technology, labor, and politics. She’s the Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) and a Lecturer in the School of Information at the University of California Berkeley. Dr. Emily M. Bender is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington where she is also the Faculty Director of the Computational Linguistics Master of Science program and affiliate faculty in the School of Computer Science and Engineering and the Information School.They also host the The Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 podcast which “deflates AI hype and draws attention to the real harms of the automation technologies we call ‘artificial intelligence’.”  Flood of AI-Generated Submissions ‘Final Straw’ for Small 22-Year-Old Publisher The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want Emily’s cartoon  Questioning the Normalization of Surveillance by the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown You Are Not a Parrot at NY Mag YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/UwBZiuH-1QY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    50 min

  8. MAR 18

    The Disappearing DOGE Depositions

    This week we start with Joseph’s series of articles about the DOGE depositions. He watched hours and hours of them, then a judge ordered them removed from YouTube. But, they’ve already been archived all over the web. After the break, Jason tells us about the AI data labelers who are fighting back. In the subscribers-only section, Jason breaks down what’s wrong with all the AI job loss research at the moment. 0:00 - Intro 0:51 - Google Street View's Unmappable City 3:40 - I Watched 6 Hours of DOGE Bro Testimony. Here's What They Had to Say For Themselves 13:24 - DOGE Deposition Videos Taken Down After Judge Order and Widespread Mockery 18:58 - The Removed DOGE Deposition Videos Have Already Been Backed Up Across the Internet 28:32 - 'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back SUB'S STORY - AI Job Loss Research Ignores How AI Is Utterly Destroying the Internet YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/xtMniLj_yzQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    47 min
See All (174)

Trailers

Hosts & Guests

4.8
out of 5
429 Ratings

About

Welcome to the podcast from 404 Media where Joseph, Sam, Emanuel, and Jason catch you up on the stories we published this week. 404 Media is a journalist-owned digital media company exploring the way technology is shaping–and is shaped by–our world. We bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds both online and IRL through investigative reporting, smart blogging, and breaking news. At 404 Media you’ll read, and hear, stories you can’t find anywhere else written by journalists who are leading experts on their beats. Subscribe to 404 Media at 404media.co to gain access to an ad-free version of this podcast, as well as a bonus podcast episodes. Subscribers are the bedrock of building a sustainable business for our journalism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    404 Media
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    174
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 404 Media
  • Show Website
    The 404 Media Podcast

You Might Also Like